Hulu Knocks Off Yahoo, According to Nielsen

The latest Nielsen U.S. video streaming numbers for February have 1-year-old Hulu at No. 2. Over the course of the month, the upstart site beat out Yahoo, in January after finishing higher than Fox Interactive Media (MySpace). Previously, those two massive portals had long rounded out the top two after the runaway winner YouTube.

Over the course of the month, YouTube had 5.2 billion streams, with Hulu at 309 million, and Yahoo at 250 million. However, if you look at unique viewers, YouTube had 88 million, Yahoo 24 million, and Hulu moves way down to fifth place with 9.5 million.

Hulu itself prefers to tout comScore numbers, where it was ranked No. 6 in January in terms of both streams and uniques. comScore hasn’t released February numbers yet, but Hulu says it saw a big boost from its first-ever Super Bowl ad.

Overall total U.S. streams were down 14.9 percent and unique viewers were down 5.9 percent on the month. Nielsen did not explain the dip, though as a general rule February stats are often smaller because the month is shorter.

We’re predicting a year of big shakeups in online video stats. Hulu has made a quick ascent but its success has only brought more and more powerful players into the game. As we said earlier today, Happy Birthday, Hulu — Do We Still Need You?